


ain't no rebound

by sarah_x



Category: Daredevil (TV), Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: M/M, i guess i should say past matt/elektra but she's still very much important to him so
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-03-20
Updated: 2016-03-20
Packaged: 2018-05-27 23:04:47
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,408
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6303673
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sarah_x/pseuds/sarah_x
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>In the wake of Elektra's death, Matt and Frank find God in the bottom of a bottle.</p>
            </blockquote>





	ain't no rebound

The loneliness was crushing. It was suffocating. The loneliness and grief swelled up in his chest like a balloon until there was nothing but a constant throbbing pain left behind from her loss that not even a cocktail of painkillers and cheap beer could fix.

He kept expecting to find her on his couch. Kept expecting to hear the slight lilt in her voice when she drawled, “ _Matthew_.” Kept expecting to hear her heartbeat in the darkness of the apartment. But there was nothing. There was nothing but the silence and it was agonizingly invasive. It crept across his skin, even in the daytime, until he felt like a stranger in his own home.

They had only moments of a life together. Yet now she felt like a missing floorboard, or a lamp, or a wall. She had become so permanent in his life, it was as if they’d known each other a lifetime.

Now she was gone.

Matt was alone.

Stick was in the wind. Foggy and Karen were off living their lives, thriving, while Matt sat on the floor of his living room and sobbed and waited for Elektra to come home when she never would. Claire had quit the hospital and he hadn’t seen her since that night on the rooftop when she’d gently scolded him. Karen hadn’t spoken to him since he’d told her he was Daredevil and she’d stormed out after an intense argument. He had thought about chasing her up but he couldn’t bring himself to do it, not now, in the wake of everything that had happened. He barely had enough motivation to get out of bed each morning and shuffle round the apartment. Still no job. Hadn’t been back on the streets as the Devil, either, and his absence was beginning to show.

He just wanted to be alone with his pain but, at the same time, couldn’t stand a single second more of isolation.

He climbed to the roof, clad in the suit and listened to the sound of the city. Her words came back to him in that moment, from the night on the rooftop searching for Karen and other innocents abducted by the Hand. “ _Slow your breath. Focus. Okay, focus._ ” He swallowed against the lump in his throat. Tonight was about being free. Tonight was about letting go.

Just as Matt thought he might have picked the wrong night, his ears caught racing heartbeats and gunfire. “Shit!” A man yelled. “Fuck, fuck, fuck! It’s the Punisher!” Matt smiled to himself slightly. Matt had not forgotten Frank Castle and now that horrific night came rushing back to him in startling clarity. Matt had been shaking with rage, ready to fight ten, fifty, one hundred men just to get to Nobu. Hadn’t had the strength to, though, and probably would have lost had it not been for Frank.

Then, when the fight was over, “See you around, Red.”

Not a goodbye but a promise. It was looking like a promise Frank was going to keep.

He had expected Frank to skip town after all that happened. Since the dock explosion the media had gone quiet about Punisher activity. Frank Castle was dead to the world, maybe even to himself, and Matt couldn’t help feel a little grief in that, too. Frank hadn’t physically died, not like Elektra, but he’d killed the man he once was and that was worth mourning.

Matt tracked the shrieking to a back-alley. He didn’t even need to see Frank to know it was him, not just from the heavy stench of blood and gunpowder but from the steady thumping heartbeat drawing him in like a moth to a flame. Matt couldn’t help that his breathing hitched when he leapt off the fire escape and let the baton fly, metal cord wrapping around Frank’s arm, pulling his gun away from the man he was aiming at. The shot went off, thwacking into the concrete rather than into the man’s skull. Frank growled at him as the man scurried past Daredevil and out of the alley. He ripped the cord off of his arm and used it to yank Matt closer to him.

Frank laughed, loud and frustrated, “Well, I did say I’d see you around.”

Matt’s lips pulled into a half-smile. He wanted to say, “ _I missed you._ ” Instead he said, “You’re done here, Frank. Time to go.”

“Go where,” Frank strolled towards him, sizing up. Frank was confident now, with a new name and, from what Foggy had told him, a spray-painted skull that adorned his bulletproof vest. “You gunna arrest me, Red?”

“Not tonight,” Matt replied, half-heartedly attempting to listen for a surviving heartbeat but knowing it was a futile task. “Tonight I just need – I need –” Matt stopped short, knowing what would have slipped out if he hadn’t stopped would have been, “ _I need you._ ” He hated the desperation of that and the vulnerability in it.

There was a long pause where had it not be for Frank’s heartbeat, Matt might have thought he’d slipped away. “I know a place,” Frank offered. “Let’s get out of here.”

Matt felt guilty leaving the carnage behind, for not fighting Frank until they were both bloody and Frank was too incapacitated to run from the cops. He should have arrested him but he didn’t because Matt was too busy thinking about the night on the rooftop, how consumed with grief and fury he had been and how relieved he had felt when he’d heard those gunshots. Frank’s calling card.

Frank was surprisingly nimble for a man of his size. Matt could tell by how quickly he climbed the fire escape, sprinted across the roof and leapt onto the next one. “You not weighed down by all that crap?” Matt joked, right behind him, feeling thrilled and charged for the first time in weeks. “I miss the jeans and leather jacket. They really worked for you.”

“Why do you give a shit about what I wear? Not like you can see me, _Murdock._ ”

Matt’s breathing hitched and he botched his landing on the edge of a roof, causing him to stumble and almost trip over the edge, had Frank not caught him by the arms and steadied him. It shouldn’t have surprised him so much. Frank must have seen his face the night of Elektra’s death or recognized his voice when Matt had spoken to him in court. It still felt strange because this was a big secret, a very personal thing that his enemies would have a field day with. A secret Frank could have a field day with, if he wanted to.

Frank was still holding onto him and Matt’s arms were resting lightly on his elbows. They were about the same height but Matt still felt completely surrounded by the other man. It should have been terrifying yet instead it was weirdly comforting. “Don’t worry, Red. I told you I don’t give a shit about who you are and nothing’s changed.”

 _Something has changed._ Matt thought because he hadn’t arrested Frank. Hadn’t tried to stop him from killing the Hand’s ninjas. Matt couldn’t kill but he had learned to step aside and let Frank do it when necessary. When the world needed him to do it. When Matt needed him to.

“Though the whole blind shtick – that’s a good cover.” Frank shouted, voice fading as he found the roof across from the building Matt was on, and it pulled him out of his thoughts.

“It’s not a cover.” Matt replied when he reached Frank on the rooftop over.

“Bullshit.” Frank was crowding him again but Matt didn’t waver.

“It’s complicated,” Matt said. “Look, where the hell are we going?”

“We’re here.”

“This is just a rooftop.”

“Yeah, it’s where I come to clear my head,” Frank was moving, and Matt listened to his movements and followed them until he was touching a brick wall - the entrance to the roof probably. “Great view of the city. Not that you can appreciate that shit if you’re telling the truth.”

“You wanted to watch the sunrise with me?” Matt couldn’t help but grin. “How romantic.”

“Bite me, Red.” Frank was sliding down the wall of the entrance, the sound of the leather trench-coat against brick scratchy and annoying to Matt’s ears. He joined him on the cold floor, feeling his way down with both hands until he was sitting shoulder-to-shoulder with Frank.

Frank pulled something from his coat and for a second Matt tensed up, half-expecting it to be a gun. Instead what he heard was the twisting of a metal cap and the sharp scent of whiskey. _Figures_. Frank took a swig of the flask and passed it to Matt, who thanked him and threw it back. “Goddamn, the city looks beautiful.”

“Describe it to me.” Matt whispered, using the soft voice that Daredevil used. The one he had spoken to Frank with in the graveyard after escaping the Irish, when Frank had bared his soul to a stranger in the silence of the cemetery. He missed that time they’d spent together, before Frank had fully evolved into the Punisher. When nothing else had seemed to matter. He wished he could go back to that night and suspend them there forever. It had been the calm in the eye of the storm, sure, but before everything had gone to shit. Before Elektra had died. Before he’d lost Foggy and Karen and Claire and everyone else. Before Frank had been sent to trial and become worse in prison instead of getting the help he needed. That one moment could have changed everything.

“You can see the skyscrapers, with lights on in different windows. I always liked that,” Frank said and Matt heard his heartrate skip, ever so slightly. _He loves this city,_ Matt thought, _he loves this city as much as I do. Maybe even more._ “Like a jigsaw puzzle with missing pieces. I can see trees and the cars…they look like waves in an ocean from up here. Hell, even that tacky fucking Avengers tower don’t look too bad from up here.”

Matt turned to him slightly, although not entirely surprised by his comments. “Not a fan?”

“Eh, they’re alright, I guess. Kids love ‘em. But they’re a bunch of Boy Scouts blowing up New York every other Thursday. Do more harm than they do good then sit in their ivory tower like they own this city. Least you’re on the front lines, Red,” Frank paused to drink from the flask then reached up to grip Matt’s shoulder. The contact wasn’t unwelcome. “You ever get an invite to join the boyband?”

“No,” Matt replied honestly. Not that he had ever wanted to be a part of that certain club. “Don’t you be expecting one, either.”

Frank chuckled and passed the flask to Matt, letting his arm slip off Matt’s shoulder. He shivered from the touch. “Yeah, well, maybe if they get desperate.”

“Even then. Pretty sure they’d hire Tupperware Girl before they’d get you on-board.”

“Alright, alright, settle down, Red. Remember I’m still packing.”

“Still hate you for shooting me, by the way.”

“We were _bonding,_ Red.”

Matt couldn’t help the huge grin that spread across his face, even if it was fucked up, and Matt giggled. Laughter spilled from Frank’s lips and Matt wished he could see Frank’s smile.

They must have spent hours on that rooftop, just talking and drinking but when Matt felt the warm glow of sunlight on his face it had felt like they’d been there for no time at all. Just like when they’d sat together in the cemetery. And, just like the cemetery, their conversation seemed to turn towards the bleak.

“That girl,” Frank said and Matt could tell by his voice that he was being cautious, wary. “The one you were fighting the Hand with…she okay?”

Matt swallowed down what was left of the flask and wiped his mouth with the back of his hand. “No.”

“Figured.”

“Then why’d you ask?”

“Something was eating you up,” Frank said. “Now I know what it was.”

There was a long silence between them and Matt could feel Frank fidgeting beside him, maybe wondering if he’d crossed some line between them. Matt sighed and whispered, “Her name was Elektra…and I loved her.”

Another pause. Matt thought Frank was about to get up and leave, at a loss for words, but instead Matt flinched as he felt rough fingers slip between his own and grip his hand tightly. Frank didn’t say anything. Neither did Matt. They just sat there for a while, holding onto each other and enjoying the sunshine and quiet of early morning.

Frank reached across him to grab the flask. Reached into Matt’s space. He smelled of gunpowder and leather and stale blood but underneath that, lavender shampoo and that dog he’d saved from the Irish.

Matt wasn’t sure why he kissed him. Maybe it was the need that had been building up inside him as early as when Frank had chained him up on that rooftop. He’d enjoyed that more than he liked to admit. Or maybe it was because of the hole left by Elektra, the loneliness and yearning for her manifesting in just wanting a connection with someone, anyone. Or maybe it was just right place, right time. The right mixture of booze and horniness and irresponsibility. Whatever the reason, Matt was eager and Frank was willing to accommodate him, even if Frank didn’t feel anything for anyone anymore. Matt wrapped his hands around Frank’s head, pulling him closer and Frank’s fingers found Matt’s neck, thumb pressing into his throat and forcing his head back into the wall. How typical of Frank, to turn something tender into something painful. Not that it was unwanted.

Frank pulled away, letting Matt breathe properly again. He was laughing. “Asshole.” Matt muttered but he was giggling too.

“Just so you know, Red, I ain’t no rebound.”

“Wouldn’t think that little of you, Frank.”

“Good, because I could get used to this.” Frank was the one to lead this time. Matt didn’t mind because he was gentle and in that moment, everything was good. He didn’t feel like he was dying inside and he didn’t feel guilty. All he knew was that Frank was kissing him and somewhere, Elektra was smiling down on them and she was happy. And, in the end, that was all that mattered.


End file.
